Our Services
Mixed age setting
Under 2's
As much as we are keen to promote an integrated age group approach to our setting, we recognise the quieter time that our under two’s may need, and have a separate area of the room dedicated to them, furnished with soft cosy provision and age appropriate resources. This area is accessible to all; however, children are aware it’s predominantly for our younger children, and ensure it is a calmer area to explore in.
Keyworkers are at the core of our values, particularly with our under two’s, promoting attachment as a secure base for learning and development. We are currently looking into an enclosed outdoor space, to fully ensure we meet all the needs of our youngest children.
2 Year Old's
For our two year olds we recognise their vivid imaginations, love of exploration and enjoyment of exploring with their senses. With this in mind we plan the environment to ensure there are vast multi sensory invitations to play, with a mixture of resources they are confident and familiar with but also new resources and experiences to challenge their minds and learning.
We continue to really focus on that key-worker bond but also developing those peer relationships and friendships. There is lots of emphasis of language and managing feelings as they begin to make sense of the World around them. Our mixed age group environment provides a fantastic opportunity to ensure the environment always meets their needs, and ensures resources and learning opportunities are adaptable and suitable for all children in setting.
3-4 year olds
With our pre-school children, we are still keen to promote learning through play, and with practitioner expertise and suitable engaging provision, our children are able to progress to towards their targets and develop their learning whilst having fun simultaneously. We encourage circle times and story times, as opportunities to develop our social development, and further our listening and attention skills.
Termly we have a service come in to promote listening and participation skills, currently this is the music man, which all the children are thoroughly enjoying, This is particularly applicable to those children who will be starting school in September, to prepare them for their new environment, and develop confidence in these areas. Social interaction is something, which we feel, is key to developing all other areas of learning, and promote this at the centre of our ethos, and this is reflected in the confident and prepared children that we transition to primary school.
Why opt for a multi age room setting?
We offer a mixed age group setting, promoting play with our youngest babies through to our oldest pre-school children, without the barrier of set rooms or limiting age appropriate resources. We are great believers of social interaction being the foundation to learning, and do not feel this is something that should be limited by age restrictions.
We feel this not only widens children’s opportunity to access a range of provision, but it also reduces the barrier of age-based restrictions, allowing children to progress at their own rate. We have observed fantastic relationships between our oldest and youngest children in the setting, with our youngest children learning skills from their peers, and our more able children developing confidence and understanding by showing the others how to carry out these skills.
It has provided wonderful opportunities to continue sibling bonds within an early years setting, which has helped our youngest children who may have found the settling in process to be difficult, to be a much easier transition. We have studied many child development theorists and their work within this area, and appreciate the work of people such as Lev Vygotsky, who emphasised how children learn from adults and their peers. He noted how children needed their support initially, and then became confident to complete these skills independently.
It is a well-researched area with other theorists such as Albert Bandura suggesting how children learn from observing other’s behaviors and attitudes and the outcomes of these.
I really like the fact that you let others interact with him. He’s a baby he won’t break like most people think. No need to wrap him in cotton wool. It’s as good for him as it is for other children to learn the importance of interaction and how to be around other children- younger or older. Thank you, really good to see!!
Quote from a parent
